Welcome to my new Bibliophile Blog. As an avid (obsessive?) reader, I thought it would be fun to share the books I am currently reading and highlight great readers I have known. My choice of books is eclectic and often serendipitous, as I stumble across book reviews in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, New York Review of Books, the Atlantic, or through conversations with friends, colleagues, and family. While in law school, I continued to read fiction and nonfiction to diversify my intellectual experience even as I reveled in the case law and policy issues we studied in class. Literature and poetry help us remember what it is to be human, inform us about moral imperatives, and remind us of the need to focus on the common good. Nonfiction—books on history, current affairs, and science—help us understand the status quo in a larger and more dynamic context. And lifelong learning opens our minds, keeps our thoughts flexible, and expands our perspectives. This blog constitutes an open dialogue. Please share your favorite books with us in the comments section. I hope we learn from each other.
June 2025
The idea for this blog was sparked by an interaction I had with a law student this past year. While passing through the library one day, I happened upon a student who was curled up in a chair reading. I could tell she was not reading law books, but rather, a novel. This was unusual: most law students in the library may be found surrounded by law tomes, notes, laptops and study guides. Instead, this young woman was riveted by a small paperback book with an abstract print on the front. The Trial, by Franz Kafka. I stopped to ask her: was the book assigned in one of her classes? No, she said, it was one of the books on her personal reading list. What was that list, I asked? It was a list, she said, that she had compiled from Goodreads and elsewhere. Would she send me that list, I asked?
Nguyen Le, now graduated and working at the Pulsinelli law firm in St. Louis, promised to do so. Her astonishing list arrived the next day by email. In 2024, Nguyen Le had read:
1. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
2. Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin
3. The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman
4. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimages by Haruki Murakami
5. In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play by Sarah Ruhl
6. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
7. The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova
8. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
9. If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio
10. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
11. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
12. The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei
13. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
14. Ascension by Nicholas Binge
15. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
16. Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
17. The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida
18. You Feel It Just Below the Ribs by Jeffrey Cranor
19. Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
20. What You Are Looking For Is In the Library by Michiko Aoyama
21. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
22. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
23. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
24. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
25. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
26. Unnatural Creatures by Neil Gaiman
27. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
28. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
29. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
30. Stardust by Neil Gaiman
31. The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li
32. She and Her Cat: Stories by Makoto Shinkai
33. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
34. Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones
35. House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones
36. How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
37. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
38. The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
39. Tales from the Cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
40. The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
41. All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami
42. Room by Emma Donoghue
43. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
44. The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell
45. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
46. Mèo and Bé by DoanPhuong Nguyen
47. Daughter of No Worlds by Carissa Broadbent
48. Children of Fallen Gods by Carissa Broadbent
49. Mother of Death and Dawn by Carissa Broadbent
50. The Orchard by David Hopen
51. Inferno by Dante Alighieri
52. The Trial by Franz Kafka
53. Hell House by Richard Matheson
54. The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova
55. Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky,
56. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
57. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
At the time she sent the list at the end of 2024, she was in the midst of reading four other books:
1. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
2. Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri
3. White Noise by Don DeLillo
4. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
I immediately recognized a kindred spirit, and one from whom I had a lot to learn. Some of the books on her list I had read: The Trial, White Noise, The Remains of the Day, The Sympathizer, Notes from the Underground. But many I had not. And one thing I also noticed: like me, Nguyen read several books at once, and she did so while managing her demanding course requirements, working on a journal, and engaging with multiple student activities and groups.
For this installment of the Dean’s Bibliophile Blog, I take my hat off to Nguyen Le. Thanks to her for highlighting new books for us to read, and for representing the best at WashU Law, where our amazing students create an atmosphere characterized by intellectual curiosity, engagement with ideas, and lifelong learning.